


Crushing Atlas

by myglassesaredirty



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (whoops), Anyways, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), i actually tried to pull out all the stops for this, i had four months to write this and i literally finished it today, that's what the food network does to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 07:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15456414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myglassesaredirty/pseuds/myglassesaredirty
Summary: When the world comes crashing down, I can only give you one piece of advice:Run.Run like you've never run before.





	Crushing Atlas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Howlingdawn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/gifts).



His hands shake.

 

In the darkness of his room, he watches as they tremble. He tries to straighten them out, and his hands begin to twitch. He focuses on the feeling in his veins, the way his arms feel unsteady, the way it translates into his hands. He curls them into fists and pulls them close to his chest.

 

Peter’s gone.

 

Some of the others, some of his friends are still alive. That doesn’t help him. It doesn’t change the fact that Peter just…disappeared like that in his arms.

 

(When he closes his eyes, he hears the whispered plea.  _ I don’t wanna go, Mr. Stark, please, please, I don’t wanna go. _

 

His hands shake more.  _ Don’t go _ , he wants to say.  _ Don’t go, please, please, kid, please come back. _ It’s no use; the world has ended, and he’s left in the dust with only the silence as a reminder of Peter.)

 

Rhodey and Bruce are still here. They’re solid. When he touches them, his hands don’t pass through. He doesn’t know where Pepper is, and he doesn’t ask. It’s better this way, he thinks. To pretend that she’s dead. Either way, he’s right or he’s wrong. One just carries less pain than the other.

 

He hasn’t eaten since before Titan, before this crazy mess happened. Whenever he thinks about eating, his stomach churns. He doesn’t want food. He won’t be able to tolerate it. All food tastes like ash and dust.

 

(The stars taste like ash, he remembers. Remembers looking up at the beautiful sky just a week ago, remembers running his tongue over his teeth at the sight of the stars. They burn and explode.)

 

The lack of sleep contributes to the shakiness in his hands. He leans back against the wall in the Wakandan compound and tries to clear his head, but Peter always comes back to him. Clinging to him, begging, begging  _ I don’t wanna go _ . At night, it’s worse, but in the daytime, no task can distract him enough from Peter.

 

Steve says they need a plan. Rhodey says to give it time.

 

(They’ve already lost; why can’t they realize that?)

 

Someone knocks on the door, and Tony shudders, taking a deep breath. He presses his fists into his eyes, sniffles, and mumbles, “Come in.”

 

Rhodey opens the door and gently steps into Tony’s room. His eyes drift to the cell phone and whiskey bottle by Tony’s side. He shakes his head gently. “Tones, don’t do this to yourself.”

 

Tony snorts and shakes his head, rubbing his nose with a shaking hand. “He left me 23 voicemails. That’s the only thing I have left of him, and one of those times he dialed the wrong number.” He leans his head back against the wall. “He asked me for homework help another time, and he figured out his mistake in the middle of explaining the problem.”

 

(That’s all he has left. A phone call. A reminder. Shaking hands and a broken heart, whiskey and a spotty connection. Voicemails about little old ladies and cute little kittens and Aunt May’s birthday. A phone call is normal, a phone call is life.

 

But that life is gone, now. Dust and ash and orange. Shivering and crying and pleading. A death, a teenager. His life is over.)

 

Tony looks down at his hands, watches in fascination as they tremble. They don’t stop shaking. It’s not the alcohol; he knows it’s not. It’s fear and grief and a broken heart that can’t help anything. “There were a lot of calls like that. He didn’t need my help,” he whispers, still staring at his hands, still watching everything fall away from him.

 

(Peter never really needed his help. Always knew the answer, always knew the method. Always knew when to call for help, but he never needed it. Until he did, and Tony couldn’t offer it. Until he did, and he died.

 

A snap. Reality is gone. Reality has changed. You keep breathing and breathing because that’s what you’re used to, not what you want. You drink to forget, but it only helps you to remember. You drown your liver in alcohol. Your pour salt on an open wound. It stings.

 

Drink until he throws up, and he’ll come back for more. Drink until he passes out, and he’ll wake up and reach for the bottle. Drink the bar dry, he says, and it still won’t be enough.)

 

Rhodey kneels and looks Tony in the eyes. “Thanos hasn’t won yet.”

 

Tony barks out a laugh and curls his fingers around the bottle. “Oh, yeah? What do you call this?” he aks, gesturing with his hand holding the bottle. “Friends and comrades are dead. People we fought with, fought  _ for _ , they’re gone. They’re not coming back.”

 

Rhodey gently reaches for the bottle. Tony tightens his grip and pulls it closer to his chest. Rhodey stretches his hand out further and finally, Tony hands him the bottle. “Not everyone was murdered, Tony. As long as they turned to ash, we still have a chance at getting them back.”

 

Tony’s hands jerk, and he grits his teeth as soon as they do. “You didn’t see what I saw,” he mutters. “You didn’t see that – that  _ kid _ begging for his life. You didn’t hear the fear in his voice, didn’t feel as his body turned to ash. God, he’s just – he was just a  _ kid _ .” He presses his fists into his eyes, and even there, he can feel the shakiness. He’s alone, dying.

 

Rhodey sighs and shifts so that he’s sitting next to Tony. “Tell me about him.”

 

Tony shakes his head, whispers out a strangled “no.” The hurt is still too raw, too new, too young. He wants to go home. He misses the days when he came home after school and disappeared into his room, curled into a ball with his head resting on his pillow. He misses Jarvis and Mom, and he misses Peter.

 

“You know what it’s like losing a kid?” he finally asks.

 

Rhodey merely shakes his head.

 

“It sucks everything outta you. The life drains from your body, and you’re just left with this cold, poisonous feeling.” He makes a fist and lets his nails dig into the palm of his hand. “You know you’ve failed when you lose a kid in a war zone.”

 

(What he doesn’t say is the anguish that comes with it. The way your heart tears in two, the way it hurts to breathe, as if your lungs are torn to shreds. Shaking hands and empty hearts. The way your body shakes and heaves. It’s screaming but your voice is silent, so you just sit in the dust and cry. It’s your body tearing itself apart from the inside out, as if it can’t bear to live anymore.

 

Breathe and breathe again. You don’t want to. Your brain is at war with itself. One part wants to die. The other demands to live. You don’t know which side to listen to. You know which side you agree with.)

 

Rhodey purses his lips and looks at the bottle that’s still in his hand. “Tell me about him,” he says again.

 

(He’s already poisoned, he’s already dead. Talking about it can only kill him.

 

It’s not like he doesn’t already want to die.)

 

“He was sixteen. Smartest kid I’ve ever met, and he had a heart of gold. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He always wanted to help others, always wanted to do something for others. He worried less about himself and more about May. It’s why he became Spider-man in the first place: he saw something bad happen when he could have stopped it. Kinda like the ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ sorta thing.”

 

Rhodey nods. “You loved him.”

 

Tony swallows. “He was like a son to me. I never – I never knew what it was like to worry about someone like that. I enforced his curfew as much as May did. I spent hours working with him down in the labs back home. He asked me about how to talk to girls. I bought – I bought  _ parenting _ books, for Christ’s sake, Rhodes. I read every one of them, and you wanna know something?”

 

Rhodey hums in response.

 

“Parenting books can’t prepare you for a child. They can’t accurately describe the heart-stopping fear you get when they show up one minute after curfew. The fear every time they get in the car by themselves, every time they are burning up with fever. I never learned how to adjust to his face whenever he’d come home after being bullied at school. I just –” He shakes his head and chokes out a sob. “I miss him, Rhodes.”

 

Rhodey shakes the bottle a little, his brown eyes intent on the amber liquid. “We’ll get him back, Tony,” he whispers. “He’s not dead – he’s just gone.”

 

Tony buries his face in his hands. “Gone is just another word for dead.”

 

“I want him back almost as much as you do.”

 

(And this is the truth, Tony realizes. Rhodey loved, and he lost. It’s the same way with all of them, an endless cycle that starts over as soon as they become happy. Love, and love again, but you lose. Breathe because there is someone worth living for. Stop because they were taken away.

 

Breathe and live and die again. It means nothing, in the end. People you’ve loved, people you’ve lost, they always leave. Life presents trial after trial, and all you can do is bow your head and plead for mercy, but mercy never comes.)

 

“He’s a good kid, Tones.”

 

(Holding out hope because hope is safe and familiar. Hope only provides disappointment and heartbreak. Live and breathe and die, and all you’ll ever face is survival. No mercy, no punishment. No children, no one to love. Life gets easier. Hope is for the foolish.

 

Hope is for the wise.)

 

He reaches for the whiskey bottle. “Gimme that.” Rhodes hands it over, but he doesn’t leave Tony to drink on his lonesome. When Tony passes him the bottle, he drinks.

 

(They all drown their sorrows in alcohol, as if it’s the only cure.)

 

\---

 

When he wakes up, it’s like he’s trapped in a cold, dark cellar. His cheek presses against something that feels an awful lot like cement, but judging by the rest of his surroundings, and the way he can hear people crying, it’s not quite a cellar.

 

He pushes himself up, and looks around the small space. It feels cramped in here, like the walls are crashing around him in waves. Every time they get close to crushing him, the walls recede, and he’s left shivering in the darkness, wondering if this is a place between heaven and hell, wondering if God is trying to punish him.

 

(He doesn’t really believe in purgatory, or a God, but this is evidence enough. The walls remind him of hell. He knows he’s dead, but he doesn’t feel dead. He waits and waits and waits for the final blow.)

 

He doesn’t quite remember what happened. He doesn’t know how to get out of here.

 

Somehow, he knows that he has been separated from Tony and May. Whether it was meant to be a month or a lifetime, he’s too scared to wonder.

 

The Place is almost hollow. He knows that he’s neither here nor there, stuck in a sort of in-between. When he closes his eyes, he feels as if dust is slipping through his fingers, as if this entire world is disappearing right in front of his eyes. When he opens his eyes, there’s nothing in front of him nor behind him; despite this, he can move neither forward or backward without the walls following him. Occasionally, after he takes a few steps, he sees a shimmer of orange, but it dances away from him, out of his sight.

 

The only thing he’s of which he’s positively sure is the mournful pain that seems to give life to this Place. A woman behind him sobs, and others call out for lost loved ones. No one seems to hear their own name.

 

Peter continues to follow that distant glimmer of orange. There’s something to it.

 

\---

 

When Tony shuffles into the kitchen the next morning, tired and hungover, he’s ready for the world to end.

 

(The world already ended, he reminds himself. A year and a half ago, a boy begged him to save his life and Tony couldn’t.

 

A year and a half ago, the world ended. This is purgatory. This is punishment. This is hell.)

 

Steve looks up from his iPad (that fucking traitor, choosing Apple over Stark tech). He doesn’t greet Tony. They’ve been walking on eggshells around each other ever since Tony returned to Earth a few days ago, and even before then. Bruce is sick of it. Tony is, too.

 

He eats breakfast and leaves, wandering the Wakandan compound, hoping that, maybe, they’ll all materialize in front of him, that Peter will wave to him and say, “Hey, Mr. Stark! I really got you that time, didn’t I?” And maybe, Tony wouldn’t even be mad, maybe he’d just let out a breath of relief and give Peter some hot chocolate and ask him to explain how he pulled it off.

 

(You know what it’s like to lose a child? It’s drowning in an ocean, with waves tossing you all over the place. You try and take a breath, but you forget how to breathe. It’s swimming up to the surface, but you can’t keep your head above the waves. It’s waves crashing behind your eyes, waves of sorrow, overwhelming pain. The ocean gets the best of you.

 

You know what it’s like to lose a child? It’s sleepless nights where you think of what you could have done differently. It’s hoping that there’s a chance that you’ll wake up the next morning to find them pouring themselves a bowl of cereal. It’s waking up and forgetting for a second that you lost a child, and then remembering, an instant later, that you are no longer a parent. It’s clutching your pillow close to your chest as you surf the waves of pain.

 

You know what it’s like to lose a child? Imagine your pain. Double it. It’s the worst thing you’ll ever experience.)

 

He leans against the wall and balls his shirt in his fist. The tears flow heavily. He’s lost. He needs help.

 

He’d do anything to get Peter back.

 

\---

 

_ Follow the rift. Follow the rift. Reach out. Pull back the curtain. What do you see? _

 

At first, he sees absolutely nothing. Once the rift is opened, it ripples outward and he steps through the opening to see what might be there. He doesn’t see much. As he’s about to turn away, he hears a voice he never thought he’d hear again.

 

“Peter.”

 

His blood runs cold, and he subconsciously steps toward the voice. “Ben?”

 

Ben appears in front of him, his gray eyes twinkling. “C’mon, your aunt made dinner.” He glances over his shoulder and leans closer to Peter, “I’ll order takeout later, just pretend to eat it, alright?”

 

It’s still dark. He can only see Ben, but Ben never led him astray before, there can’t be anything wrong now–

 

**_May isn’t here._ **

 

Peter stops. Ben seems to have noticed, and his smile falters. “Peter? You okay there, bud?”

 

Peter shakes his head and takes a step back. May isn’t here. He didn’t hear her voice or her grief. She  _ isn’t here,  _ and he can feel it. He knows it. May is safe. She’s alive. Thanos didn’t get her.

 

**_Remember Thanos? That bastard._ **

 

This isn’t real. No matter how desperately he wants it, no matter how  much he wants to believe that Ben is back and alive, it isn’t true and it isn’t right.

 

He straightens his shoulders and looks Ben square in the eyes. “She’s not here. You’re not, either. Tell me where to go.”

 

Ben sneers but obediently folds himself into a shimmer of orange and begins to direct Peter.

 

\---

 

“The gauntlet is still intact.”

 

Tony grits his teeth. “Fuck,” he says, throwing his piece of toast on the counter.

 

Steve sends him a disapproving glare. “How do you know this?”

 

Thor takes the drink Rhodey offers him. “It wasn’t destroyed when Thanos snapped his fingers. It might not look the same, but it’s still working and still just as powerful.”

 

Tony hangs his head.

 

“The thing is,” Nebula says in that coarse, rasping voice of hers, “if one of us uses it – and one of us would have to, to reverse Thanos’s effects – it requires a heavy price.”

 

Bruce adjusts his glasses. “Wasn’t his arm burned?”

 

Nebula and Thor shake their heads simultaneously. “It was not meant for mortal men,” Nebula explains. “Your other half might be able to wield it, but the power would kill any of you.”

 

“And what happens if you, Thor, or Hulk can’t wield it? What then?”

 

Tony bites the inside of his cheek and raises his head. “I don’t know about you all, but I’m willing to die if it sets the world right again.”

 

_ As long as Peter is alive again. _

 

\---

 

_ This way is the path to life. _

 

**_This_ ** _ way is the path to redemption. _

 

_ Come here, and Ben never died. _

 

**_Come this way, and your parents lived._ **

 

_ If you follow me, you’ll find that Tony Stark is your biological father. _

 

**_Come my way, and you won’t have known poverty._ **

 

Peter stops for a moment. The voices come from each direction and they’re enticing, unforgettable. He bows his head, trying to distinguish the one voice he’s familiar with, the one voice he needs to hear.

 

_ This is the path you’ve been searching for. _

 

The other voices get in the way, of course. They shout louder, scramble over each other to be heard.

 

He throws up his walls.

 

Black edges in on him on every side except for the one that shimmers with orange. Muffled noises hurl themselves at each wall, but nothing gets past the barrier, nothing reaches him except his guide.

 

Soon enough, he’ll be coming home.

 

\---

 

They fight.

 

A battle, a war, they fight.

 

Fallen comrades, broken screams, blood, sweat, but still they fight.

 

Tony makes sure that Rhodey is at least relatively okay during the entire battle. He lost Peter already. He can’t lose Rhodey, especially since Rhodey’s loss would be permanent.

 

Thanos sneers at Steve. “You don’t give up, do you?”

 

Steve, who is on the brink of death himself, pushes himself to his feet. His knees buckle, and he sways, but by some miracle, he manages to remain upright. His face is as white as a sheet, blood leaks from his temple, but he still looks Thanos in the eyes to say, “I can do this all day.”

 

Thanos laughs. He picks Steve up in his oversized hand and crushes the life out of Steve Rogers.

 

Tony watches as Steve’s head lolls back, as his pale body becomes limp, as Thanos crushes Steve’s ribs and bones and organs into dust. Tony tries not to think of the words he could have said. He fails.

 

He looks around at the battlefield. Ten Avengers were too few. Even with the members they had in the first war against Thanos, it wasn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough. No one will ever be enough.

 

(And this is the curse of being Atlas. You bear the weight of the world, you hold people’s hearts in your hands and people are so delicate. They are the hardiest species, but they break easily if pushed far enough.

 

Atlas is human. Atlas is mortal.

 

One day, Atlas will lose his strength.

 

And the world will come crashing down.)

 

Steve has stepped back from this world. He’s gone, now. The world teeters on its axis, and Thor and Tony rush to balance it between their shoulders.

 

(When the world comes crashing down, you better run.)

 

Natasha screams. Rhodey flies towards her as fast as he can. He’s too late.

 

Her head is missing.

 

Tony looks away, willing himself to keep from throwing up. It’s quite a feat, he must admit.

 

Only six of them are left.

 

Nebula is the most successful among them, but she dances around Thanos, waits until his back is turned.

 

(She was almost successful in killing him two years ago. Almost prevented the war that ended the world. Almost saved billions of people.

 

Almost saved her sister.)

 

Nebula doesn’t get closer. Thanos turns around and knocks her aside, as if she’s no bigger than a cockroach. She doesn’t get back up.

 

(The world is tilting dangerously. Pick it up, hold it up above your head. Your hands shake. Your body begs you to give up. People rely on you. You can’t give up now.)

 

Their options are dwindling.

 

Thor hurls Stormbreaker at Thanos, and it lodges itself in Thanos’s shoulder. Thanos gasps in pain and lifts his gauntlet. The power blasts Thor away.

 

(Tony takes Thor’s slack and carries the world on his shoulders. He’s merely a man. He can’t hold it up forever. He kneels and bows his head, almost like he’s praying. The world balances itself on the back of his neck.

 

One wrong move, and he’ll die, and the world will end.)

 

The gauntlet is still on Thanos’s arm.

 

(You better run.)

 

Tony finds Carol floating in the air. “Carol,  _ get that gauntlet off of him!” _

 

She flexes her fingers and concentrates on the gauntlet. Ropes made of orange light erupt from her fingertips and wrap around the gauntlet. She tugs on it and pulls it off.

 

Thanos roars in anger and tries to pluck her out of the sky. She drops the gauntlet near Tony and flies away, zooming around the battlefield.

 

(Run. I told you to run.)

 

Tony races for the gauntlet and slips it onto his hand.

 

**T** **_ell me what you want._ **

 

Visions flash behind Tony’s eyelids. World peace.

 

( _ Run _ )

 

His own family.

 

( _ Please, I’m begging you to run _ )

 

Endless knowledge.

 

( _ The world is coming down _ )

 

Superhuman abilities.

 

( _ Run away, run far, far away _ )

 

A healthy mind.

 

( _ Go _ )

 

Power.

 

( _ The world is ending _ )

 

Tony shakes his head and clears his mind.

 

**I want you to reverse the snap, and I want you to be gone.**

 

The gauntlet seems to laugh at him.  **D** **_o you know what this means for you?_ **

 

**I don’t care.**

 

**Y** **_ou should. You should be worried._ **

 

**Bring them back.**

 

**A** **_s you wish._ **

 

The power fades. The gauntlet falls off his arm.

 

When he looks up, he’s back in Wakanda. The gauntlet simply looks like a decorated glove.

 

They’ve done it. By God, they’ve done it.

 

Stormbreaker is lodged in Thanos’s chest like it had been two years ago. Thor is awake, and so is Nebula. Thanos is dying, and they’ve almost won.

 

Thanos gulps and turns his head to Tony. “You have no idea what you’ve just done, do you?” he asks. His words almost slur together. His death is upon them.

 

Tony squares his shoulders. “I just saved the whole fucking world from what you did.”

 

Thanos shakes his head. “No,” he moans, and his head lolls back. “No, you don’t know what it costs.”

 

Tony, for one fleeting moment, actually believes that Thanos is trying to sympathize with him. He tilts his head. “What the  _ fuck _ do you mean?”

 

“It costs…ev’rythin’…”

 

Tony’s heart, like Thanos’s, hammers…

 

Hammers…

 

Stops.

 

\---

 

He’s following the light, and his hopes are getting higher. He’s almost free, almost safe. He can go home.

 

The ground beneath his feet rumbles, and he looks around in search of the cause.

 

The world goes black.

 

He’s lost.

 

There’s no way out.

 

The walls that surround him slam shut and bear down on him. He can’t move.

 

He’s trapped.

 

\---

 

They hold a quiet funeral for him a few weeks after the snap is reversed. The general public has barely found time to mourn him, but people still pepper him with questions concerning the funeral. So they tell no one, and they ask the pastor to perform it at night. The pastor agrees.

 

There are no words at the funeral. Just tense jaws and few tears. They wish they could say they won’t mourn him, but there’s a preacher in front of them, and you can’t lie to a man of God.

 

Rhodey was the one who found him. He called for Pepper and Bruce. Pepper has repeatedly told their therapists and the preachers and doctors that he stayed calm. There was never a hint of panic in his voice, and that abated her own panic.

 

He finds himself to be empty. He cleaned up the mess after the doctor came by and confirmed what they already knew. He didn’t have any more grief left in his soul.

 

And maybe it would be better if the kid had made it back, if the kid was here by their side, almost as a reminder that there’s life in the midst of death.

 

The soul stone demands a sacrifice. Peter was the sacrifice.

 

And Rhodey knows that Peter being here would have helped exponentially, would have known that Tony would never have given in to his demons if Peter was next to him. The world ended twice for Anthony Edward Stark: the day Peter left him, and the day Tony knew he was never getting him back.

 

They mourn and they bury their dead, but they go back to work the next morning because that’s what they’re used to, and that’s what they know.

 

(Breathe because you’re used to it.)

 

They’ll get better, eventually.

 

(Hope is for the foolish.)

 

The preacher – his name is Alex, Rhodey recalls absently – approaches Rhodey at the end of the service. “Here,” he says, and Rhodey feels a rush of gratitude for the man, “I know it doesn’t feel like it helps, but I promise I’m praying for you. I know what it feels like to lose your best friend.”

 

Rhodey breathes in a shaky breath. “Thank you,” he says, and he truly means it. “It means a lot.”

 

The card has a verse written in Alex’s handwriting, below which is Tony’s own chicken scratch. Rhodey feels a knot rise in his throat as he reads:

_ Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning. _

 

(Hope is for the wise.)

 

\---

 

Scott found him in the quantum realm.

 

The Pyms were a little hesitant to put him back in there, but he insisted that there was someone lost in there, and if he could just have half an hour, he could find him.

 

Visions, he said. Visions of a little kid begging for help.

 

Scott found him, and brought him back to the Avengers compound.

 

Peter emerges from the tunnel, a little dazed, but just as young as he was three years ago. His smile is bright, and his eyes are just as full of life. “Thank you, Mr. Ant-Man, sir.”

 

Scott laughs and pats Peter’s back. “Scott, Pete. Just call me Scott.”

 

“Alright, Mr. Scott.”

 

Scott laughs again, and Rhodey, still standing in the back, tries to force a smile. His lips barely turn up at the corners, and he leaves the group.

 

_ If only it had been a few months earlier. _

 

Peter, of course, doesn’t miss this, and excuses himself from the congregation around him. “Mr. Rhodey!” he calls, running after Rhodey, who ducks into a secluded hallway. “Mr. Rhodey, can I talk to you for a second?”

 

Rhodey stops. It’s no use trying to outrun him.

 

Peter catches up, panting slightly. “Wow,” he says. “You guys really did it.”

 

“Yeah, kid.”

 

“I mean. Thanos was huge. He was like a buff Barney. But he was also really terrifying and killed me, so.”

 

Rhodey pretends to glance at his watch. He knows the question that’s about to pop out of Peter’s mouth. “What do you want, kid?”

 

Peter scratches his head and furrows his brow for a second. “Oh! Oh, yeah. Um…where’s Tony?”

 

Rhodey looks into Peter’s eyes, ever-hopeful, ever-curious. They remind him of a certain doe-eyed kid from MIT. “He’s not here,” and his voice is as tough as steel.

 

Peter blinks, taken aback by Rhodey’s voice. “Oh. Uh, you know when he’s getting back?”

 

Rhodey sighs. “No, uh…Peter, Tony’s dead.”

 

And he  _ hates _ doing this to the kid, hates how blunt he was, because Peter shakes his head and takes a step back. “No,” he whispers, as if that will prove Rhodey wrong. “He can’t be.”

 

“I’m sorry, Peter.”

 

Peter shakes his head again, and his body seems to glow. Rhodey acts out of instinct, and pulls Peter close to his chest and holds him.

 

“I want Tony.” Peter’s voice is harder than it ever has been in the past, and Rhodey wants to know what happened in his three-year disappearance to cause that.

 

“He’s not here, kid.”

 

“I want Tony.”

 

“He’s not here.”

 

Peter pushes against Rhodey’s embrace. “I want Tony,” he sobs.

 

Rhodey keeps holding him close, and for the first time since Tony’s death, the grief overwhelms him. “I know, kid, I know.” He closes his eyes and one tear falls down his cheek. “But he’s not here.”

 

(The world comes crashing down when Atlas dies. People run. Most run away, but some run forward and roll under the world, barely managing to catch it. Two people bear the weight of the world.

 

It will crush them.)


End file.
